Google shutting down Bump on January 31

When Google acquired mobile file sharing service Bump in September, there was no move to close the service, in fact both parties said they would keep it open and running with updates, but three months down the line things have changed.

David Lieb, CEO and founder of Bump, has announced they will be closing both Bump and their other application, Flock, on January 31. The reason, Lieb says, is the team is too focused on projects inside Google to continue updating Bump and Flock.

The company is pulling both apps from the iOS apps store and Google Play store and will discontinue updates. This makes the apps almost pointless and only users who have previously downloaded them will be able to check them out again.

Bump gained a large amount of popularity because it allows users to file share and send information, simply by “bumping” each others smartphones. The app has become quite inefficient since Apple introduced AirDrop, a simpler way to connect and file share – Apple even mocked Bump’s popularity at their keynote when revealing AirDrop.

Flock, the less well known app, was used as a group collaboration service for photos and videos, but didn’t gain much recognition. This will also be shut down, in light of the recent announcement that the company has no time to update to revolutionise these products.

We are not sure what the ex-Bump employees are doing at Google, normally after an acquisition Google likes to send them into the field, to work on new and exciting projects. Normally Google doesn’t keep the app or product running, as the integration process takes them away from the app and makes them work on other projects.

Bump has become a little more than a picture of life before iOS7 and Flock was never a really big fish in the sea, so all in all this is not a big deal for the guys who are now working on exciting projects at Google.